


Tiny Family

by Mutie (mutietootie)



Category: Gintama
Genre: "papa" gintoki, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, how tf do u tag this, tiny tots kagura and sougo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutietootie/pseuds/Mutie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teentoki and tot Kagura go about their day</p><p>Based on this:<br/>http://thefatedmeeting.tumblr.com/post/121962964451/tiny-gin-and-his-tiny-family</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wake Up Gin (Wake Gin Up Inside)

Blissful sleep is ever-so-rudely interrupted by a blaring alarm and the screeching of a little girl on the other side of his door, accompanied by the cheerful soundtrack of some kid’s show. A hand creeps out from under the heavy blankets, hovering slightly over the edge of the futon, fingers sleepily feeling around for what could not be found. Soon after finding nothing, a bushy mess of white frizz pops out from under the covers, with red eyes blinking rapidly at the sudden brightness. After a moment of adjusting to the light, they search for the source of the aggravating beeping, only to find the same conclusion the hands did. The mouth stretches in a yawn, and the head burrows its way under the pillow, somewhat blocking the sound, just enough so that it can be easily ignored. 

The door slamming open and the voice following is harder to ignore.

“Gin-chan! Turn off the beeping!” comes from the doorway, and the blanket-covered body, now identified as “Gin-chan,” sluggishly moves into a semi-upright position and mutters, “Then find it for me, brat.”

The girl, who will be referred to as “Brat” until further notice, huffs and stomps over to the corner of the room, where a cell phone appears to have been thrown. She fiddles with it for a second, before walking to the bed and squatting down in front of the form under the blankets, which seems to have fallen back into a tired lay.

Brat shoves the phone into its face. “Put the numbers in.” 

Gin-chan groans and takes it from her tiny hands and taps in a quick passcode (which is most certainly not the pretty weather girl’s birth date) and hands it back, only to drop it on the floor of where the girl had previously stood. He sits up again and sweeps a glance over the room. She’s not here anymore. Lovely. Maybe he can get some more shut-eye before he had to leave for school-

A loud crash from the kitchen vaporized that possibility. 

The covers automatically fly off of Gin-chan’s legs and he hurtles to his feet, having to pause for a moment to get over the dizziness of getting up too fast, before racing out of the room. 

He finds her sitting on the kitchen counter, next to the kettle and with a jar of instant coffee oh her lap. 

“G’mornin.” She says when he comes in. She holds up the coffee to him. “I was gonna make this for you.”

“Kagura, do you even know how to make coffee?” He mumbles, drowsiness catching up to him.

She scoffs the best a four-year-old can. “Yeah! I do!” 

“Oh really? Tell me then.”

A few moments pass in silence. These prove to be the calm before the storm, as tears begin to bubble in the girl’s eyes.

Gin-chan sighs. She’s obviously just trying to help, wanting to be a big girl for the sake of her guardian, and who’s he to turn down an offer to have someone make breakfast every morning. He glances to the wall clock. Unfortunately, it reads much too late for a full coffee-making tutorial, (due to his efforts of sleeping in) and he sighs yet again.

He takes the jar from her hands, much to her protest, and with the other hand, nukes a cup of water in the microwave. Kagura tries to start up a fuss again, but, as he had learned from experience, she is much more docile with a bowl of Cheerios under her nose. 

As she eats with a vigor a four-year-old should not be showing yet, Gin-chan begins his morning routine. It’s a tedious sort of ritual, and he has nearly mastered it with robotic precision. First, reluctantly get out of pajamas and don the stiff and ugly mess of his school uniform. Second, check to make sure Kagura did not break anything. Third, run a comb through the dense jungle that is his hair and plead to the lord that it does not break this time. Fourth, check to make sure Kagura did not break anything. Fifth, shove unfinished homework into his bag and hope that he can copy the remainder from one of the many who owe him favors. At this point Kagura has broken something, and Gin-chan is filled with the overwhelming urge to cry. 

At last, and probably running late as usual, he scoops up Kagura from her chair piled high with phone books, and slings her onto his shoulders, freeing up his hands for his schoolbag and his earlier made travel cup of shitty instant coffee, and rushes out the door and down the stairs. 

More times than not, he meets an immovable roadblock near the bottom of the steps, it going by the grim name of Otose.

He grins and tries to rush by her.

She catches him by the ear and stops him in his tracks, with a complaint of “You’re late, idiot.”

“Yes, Gran, I am, and your blabbering is actually costing me precious seconds, so if you would please let go of my ear-”

She squeezes his ear even harder and draws out a pained cry from him and a laugh from the girl riding his shoulders. “How many times have I told you not to piggyback the kid down the stairs? She could fall and break her neck!” 

“Naw, Granny, Kagura’s got the grip of a gorilla. Look, even now she’s pulling my hair out by the roots.” Kagura gives it another tug to punctuate. “And who are you to tell me how to raise my own kid?”

Otose stares him down, red lips pulled into an angry pout. “Who am I, Gintoki? I am not only the unluckiest foster mother on this godforsaken Earth to be stuck with a seventeen-year-old brat as a kid,  _ with _ a kid to boot; but also the only one with the ability to strip you of your lovely apartment and put you  _ and _ dear Kagura on the streets!”

“Feh, you wouldn’t. You love us too much.”

“Yeah, Baba!” Kagura squeals. “And Gin-chan always tells me I’m too cute to be a hobo!”

Otose sighs and offers her finger to Kagura, who is happy to grab it. “That’s because he’d get you somewhere safe before you had the chance.” 

Her tone is much more soft, kind even. 

“He’d get you to a nice warm house with loving parents ready to take you in, then let himself rot on the streets with no regrets.” She looks to him, eyebrows scrunched with the slightest bit of concern. “Honestly, Gintoki. You should put more worth in yourself.” 

He frowns and kicks at the asphalt under his shoes. “Granny, I’ve lived most of my life without a home, I’d be fine. Kagura, on the other hand, has not. She’d need somewhere to go more than me.”

“And my suspicions are confirmed. You’ve already planned for this too, I’d bet.”

Gintoki, shoulders hunched, shuffles in his place. “Well I’m sure as hell not letting her go to state.” He mumbles under his breath, awkward and bitter. 

Otose glares at him, and he subtly shies away from her stare, before she sighs again. “Fine, fine. I won’t push the subject anymore.” She looks to the sky above, the sun now ever so slightly higher than when their conversation started. “What’s the time?”

Gintoki follows her eyes towards the rising sun, squinting at it a moment deciphering an approximate time... 

“...Oh shit! I’m gonna miss the train-” he starts, only to be caught by the ear again by bony fingers.

“Hold on boy, I’m not done with you just yet.” She tugs him around to face her whilst mumbling under her breath, “I hate how you make me do this every goddamn morning.” She raises her voice to a commanding manner, like a drill sergeant to a lowly soldier. “Do you have work today?”

“Yeah, a shift at the convenience store right after school, then I have’ta go wait tables at the diner after I make the kids dinner.”

“Is Shinpachi coming over after?”

“When  _ doesn’t _ he, Granny?”

“Where are your glasses?”

“I’ve got my contacts in, don’t need ‘em.”

“Did you finish your homework?”

He shakes his hand with a grimace on his face. “Eeh…”

“Kagura?”

“-Is going to the Okita’s, like she does  _ every day _ .”

She leans in close to his face (to which he copies) and says quietly, as to not let any children (read: Kagura) hear. “Did you take your medication today?”

Oh shit, she’s onto him. “Well, Granny, y’see…”

She straightens, shoulders now stiff with irritation. “What  _ do _ I see, Gintoki?”

“I’m  _ kinda  _ due for a refill, but I haven’t really got the time to go get it-” His excuse is stopped in its tracks.

“Well, now you do. You’re going after your store shift today. The pharmacy’s in the area.”

“But Gran, I gotta-”

“Gintoki,  _ I  _ will personally make your kids dinner,  _ I _ will keep an eye on them, I’ll even help with  _ their _ homework need be, so you are filling that  _ fucking prescription-” _

He claps his hands over Kagura’s ears. “Language!” Kagura, on the other hand, was too busy tying knots in silver hair to have heard the obscenity. 

“...before you fall into a downward slump again! Gintoki, really. You’ve already got so much on your plate with all these jobs, school, and the responsibility of taking care of the kids, you  _ have _ to learn to take care of yourself!” She stares at him, an intense expression on her face.

Gintoki feels awful for it, and the feeling of wanting to flee the subject grows. 

He knows that Otose will be furious with him, but he turns on his heel and forces a grin on his face. “I’m going to be late for the train, we’ll talk later, Granny!” before dropping Kagura to a more sturdy position on his back and taking off. He can feel Otose’s shocked stare on his back more than the weight of the obliviously cheering toddler.


	2. C'Mon 'N Ride It (The Train)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lets go 2 skool!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tsukky has an accent and gin is aroace.  
> final answer

“Gin-chan! Gin-chan! The train!”

“Oh my god, we’re not gonna make it!”

Kagura puffs out her cheeks and kicks him in the ribs, “Don’t jinx it, Gin-chan! Go faster! Like Sonic the Hedgehog!”

Gintoki wheezes, “Sonic didn’t have to carry Tails on his back, you little brat!” He looks up to see the last of the passengers get on board and the doors start to close. He claps his hand over his mouth to muffle his words. “Shitshitshitshit _ shiiiiiiit-” _

Through his panic, he doesn’t notice the weight fall off his back, and only sees a flash of orange hair and a pink parka before he realizes that Kagura had jumped off and was now sprinting towards the train at speeds nearly impossible for a toddler. 

Gintoki, now with less weight to carry, bounds for the train as well, only to find himself neck and neck with another late student, this one with toast in her mouth and her hair bouncing in a bun. She turns to him mid-dash and swallows the last bite of bread.

“Good morning, Gintoki. You’re runnin’ late again, I see.” She says, mustering a normal voice between pants. She must have been running for quite some time now. 

“We’re  _ both _ running late, moron. Now shut up and run, Kagura’s already in the fucking car!” 

The aforementioned child waves from said car, her tiny hand making sure the door doesn’t close on them. As Gintoki speeds up and bounds over the break between platform and train car, her hand falls and the doors begin to close.

The other student, still running on the platform, having bumped into someone along the way, shouts, “Wait, wait, wait hold the do _ oooor!- _ ” Mid-word, a hand shoots out from inside the train, grabs her wrist and yanks her in just as the doors screech closed. Exhausted and maybe a little spooked, she lets go of the hand that saved her and falls forward onto the floor. Luckily for them, the car is only semi-full, and those who were on looked on to her with sympathy. A foot nudges her side as she breathes heavily. 

“Oi, fix your skirt. I don’t mind you lying on the dirty floor, but I don’t want you attracting any more perverts.”

She reaches back and adjusts herself, and after a moment more of breathing, moves to sit up on the floor, only to accept a toddler cheering “Tsukky!” into her arms.

Gintoki plops himself onto the bench lining the wall to look down at the girl. “Funny, you're not usually this late for the train. Hinowa have an errand for you to run?”

She shakes her head. “Nah, jus’ slept through my alarm. I had a late shift last night, after all.”

“At the club?”

Tsukuyo scoffs, “They wish. I was fillin’ in for one of my girls at the teahouse. She wanted t’ have a nice evening out with her boyfriend, if you get what I mean.” 

“Bleuugh.” Gintoki sticks his tongue out in disgust. “That’s nasty.”

“Mmh,” Tsukuyo hums. “I wouldn’t really call it nasty. She’s not kinky enough fer that sort of terminology. Unconventional, maybe, but not nasty.”

“All forms of sexual intimacy are nasty, Tsukky. And since when do you know so much about your girls’ fetishes?”

“They all talk to me about ‘em for some reason. No idea why, s’not like I’m a sex goddess or a hooker or anything.”

He smirks at her. “You might be. In another universe that is. The you here is pretty enough.”

She snorts. “Feelin’ theoretical, eh? Tell ya what, if there’s a universe where I’m a hooker, there’s a universe where you live in Edo-era Japan, doin’ the exact same thing you’re doin’ right now.”

“What, working odd jobs and taking care of two kids?”

“Eyup. Yer probably an old man doin’ it, too.”

Gintoki shivers. “Euugh, I don’t wanna be in the same boat as that guy.” He waits a moment, thinking, then lowers his eyes to the floor. “The way things are going now though… Maybe I’ll get off worse than him. Sometimes I feel like I’ll be in this rut forever.”

Tsukuyo eyes him with a creased brow and a small smile on her lips. She playfully elbows him in the rib, driving away the negative thought. “You won’t be. You’ll get on your feet. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

He grins back to her, and leans down to pick up Kagura and bounce her on his knee.

* * *

 

They reach their platform not too much later, and, after a quick wave farewell, Tsukuyo begins her trek up the hill to the school entrance. Gintoki, however, turns and walks down the adjacent street, Kagura holding his hand.

After a bit of a walk, they arrive at a house-turned-business at the end of the road, with the residential works, a white picket fence, a cobblestone walkway, and a big lovely playset in the front yard, already with kids dangling off the bars. As they make their way to the front door, Gintoki finds himself admiring the house, with its lovely exterior, painted a darling robin’s egg blue with white trims and window panes. It was something not so much homey, as it was something out of a little girl’s dollhouse fantasy.

His thoughts were interrupted with a squeal of “Gin-chan! Gin-chan! I wanna ring the bell!”

He sighed, and picked her up under the arms, “Yeah, yeah, when do you not.”

After the light jingle of the doorbell, to which Kagura sang along to, the door opened to reveal a woman in an apron, long hair tied into a loose side ponytail, balancing a toddler on her hip. Another, older child, stuck to her side, gripping the hem of her shirt. She smiled, and with a soft voice, greeted them. “Good morning, Gintoki,” she nodded towards him, “And hello to you too, Kagura! Ready for another day of fun?” she cheered to the smaller girl, a newfound childish excitement in her words.

Kagura cheered a happy “Yeah!” and rushed into the house, but not before saying her goodbye to Gintoki, and he promising her to be back right after school was over. Judging from the squeals heard in the next room over, she’d already met her friends. 

He turned back to the woman. “Thanks again for taking care of her, Mitsuba.”

She giggled. “Gintoki, you say that every day. When are you going to learn that I’m happy to? It  _ is _ my profession after all. And it should be me thanking  _ you  _ for walking Sougo every day. I’d be terrified if he had to walk down there alone.”

“Lady, you’re giving me free childcare for a half-mile’s walk twice a day, on a trip I’d already be going on to pick up Kagura. I’ll walk Soda to the moon and back if you say I should.”

She giggled again. “Really now, after all that walking, you still don’t remember his name. You’re awful.” She gave him a playful punch to the shoulder. 

He smirked back to her. “We should be going soon, don’t want to be late, y’know?”

She turned to the kid at her side. “Ready to go, Sou?” 

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Off with you, then, and be nice to Gin-san, will you?”

He nodded again, and takes Gintoki’s outstretched hand. When they turn and go down the walkway again, he turned and waved, muttering a soft “Bye.”

Mitsuba, still standing in the doorway, waved back, pleasant as always.

* * *

 

They left the property, and walked quietly for a while, the hands between them swinging slightly.

Gintoki cleared his throat, then spoke, tone low. “How’s she doing? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Sougo doesn’t reply for a moment, then barely whispered, “She’s coughing again.”

Gintoki’s breath hitched. “...I see.” 

Both their grips tightened, and the walk continued in dead silence.


End file.
